Nordic Built – Building Component Reuse

The project addresses the 'dark side' of renovation - the material waste. The waste represents a triple capital of resources respectively related to economy, energy and culture. With the present renovation practice far too many of these are lost in transformation processes. Lifecycle studies, performed in connection with green certification, highlight the amount of resources accumulated in building materials and by building processes. The lifecycle approach adds new parameters to the traditional scope of sustainable construction, which has previously been focusing primarily on energy for building operation. The demolishing practice in all Nordic countries today has a high level of efficiency in terms of separating construction debris and minimizing landfill. However, as practiced, waste materials are most often broken down to the lowest level of its potential: for combustion or for recycling as secondary material. Only a very small part of demolition waste is reused in a similar function or for other purposes without extensive degradation. Hereby, embodied resources accumulated in manufacturing and maintenance processes are wasted together with potential cultural values. The perspective of this approach is to investigate in practices and business models related to reuse of dismantled building components and materials at the highest possible level of conservation. A construction practice for reuse must enable: 1: Demonstration of principles for reuse of dismantled components from building renovation, and 2: Demonstration of principles for construction aiming at future reuse of components, known as Design for Deconstruction (DfD). Hence, the scope of the project will be the production of a large number of solutions on prototype-level, describing altogether a guide for how building parts and components can be salvaged, how they can be rehabilitated systematically, and how they can be marketed as reliable products - a 'productification' of reused components. The project will explore ways to organise design processes that is open for the often less stable supply of reused materials, such as larger tolerances in design and construction, and alternative ways to organise tenders. The research will also describe challenges and suggest possible solutions regarding renovation projects where reuse is taking place on site by contractor, as well as projects where reuse of components is facilitated through a third party provider.